Hmm, sounds like our outlook on Summoning is pretty divergent on more levels than I previously thought . Their choice in vocals never struck me as strange or ill-fitting at all, once I came to embrace the gestalt of their style for what it is. I think the vocals help anchor the music somewhat and give it more pith, and they also bring a darker edge to the proceedings that feels necessary...just as Middle Earth had its orcs as well as its elves, I feel Summoning needs that sense of grimness in the mix to bring across the spectrum of their vibe.

"The Loud Music..." bugs me for a few reasons: the weak as fuck opening, the poppy drum sound, and the melodies that never seem to really turn into anything exciting. But yeah, we can definitely agree on "Long Lost...", fucking epic track. "Like Some Snow White Marble Eyes" might even be better for me these days, and the "chorus" riff on "Where Hope and Daylight Die" has to be one of the best things they ever wrote.

As to the repetition aspect: being a big fan of both Branikald and Darkspace, I can see where you're coming from. The difference being (however little it sounds like it matters on paper) that both those bands are playing those repeated riffs and structures on instruments rather than looping them in Ableton or something. I know it shouldn't really matter but for some reason it does. The former builds a hypnotic, relentless vibe while the latter runs the risk of just seeming lazy. Luckily Summoning are so good at what they do that they always manage to pull it off in the end, but I find it kind of funny that a band that clearly has no regard for limiting their layer count doesn't think of writing in alternate harmonies, additional polyphonies, or variations on riffs more often. Adding a drum break doesn't do your composition much good if what follows it is exactly the same thing we heard before. I dunno...it's weird. Their arrangements also seem kind of arbitrary sometimes. Like all the horn melodies on Oath Bound and Old Mornings Dawn that start to kind of all sound the same after a while. We don't need more horn layers, we need more fucking guitars, guys.

Yesterday was the birthday of school pal and I met the chick of my sigh (I've talked about here before, the she-wolf I use to be inlove with)... Maaan she was using a mini-skirt too damn insane... Dude you could saw her entire soul every time she sit...

Thanks holmes! Gonna be putting them up in blocks of five, the Future Drug review has been sitting almost complete for a few days because I've been busy, but once that's done the second block will show up. It's amazing I'm actually not burned out on this band with how much I've been listening for this series.

EDIT: Also, I'm noticing that throughout this whole series, every album we've both reviewed (which I believe is everything up to Gaia), our scores only differ by like three percent at the max. Clearly our taste rules.

Metal died in 1993. Only 12 good albums have been released since then (most of them in 1994, being already recorded by 1993). I sold all the junk or unnecessary releases from my album collection and kept only what is worth listening to.

Haha, I'll be keeping an eye on him.

_________________'Sometimes you have to be a bigot in order to beat bigger bigots' - G. Marenghi.

Oblation play "Christian" death metal. Much like their peers in Mortification and Living Sacrifice at this time, they took their direction from whatever was most popular in the underground at the time and make a Jesus praising parody of it all. Oblation chose Obituary's The End Complete as their template for forcing leftist, P.C. propaganda down on poor metalheads who are forced to go Sunday school.

Man, this guy is such a try-hard.

_________________

Ismetal wrote:

GuntherTheUndying IS THE GAY NUMBER 1, HE DOESNT LIKE TO READ THE TRUTH, SO I THINK THIS PAGE IS FOR GAYS WHO WANTS TO READ MESSAGES LIKE "I LOVE MY BAND", "THEY ARE MY LOVE"

A welcome change from the incredibly boring and meaningless praise-by-numbers reviews of Immortally_Insane and maggot215. Perhaps we are too accustomed to MA standards, rather than the "industry standard" of heaping praise on whatever shit labels give to you to promote (or "review").

A welcome change from the incredibly boring and meaningless praise-by-numbers reviews of Immortally_Insane and maggot215. Perhaps we are too accustomed to MA standards, rather than the "industry standard" of heaping praise on whatever shit labels give to you to promote (or "review").

Doubtful. Coming off as edgy or juvenile is hardly a welcome change from the basic. Have you been reading reviews written by other users who've proven to be unique and entertaining, such as Liquid_Braino?

_________________

Ismetal wrote:

GuntherTheUndying IS THE GAY NUMBER 1, HE DOESNT LIKE TO READ THE TRUTH, SO I THINK THIS PAGE IS FOR GAYS WHO WANTS TO READ MESSAGES LIKE "I LOVE MY BAND", "THEY ARE MY LOVE"

EDIT: Also, I'm noticing that throughout this whole series, every album we've both reviewed (which I believe is everything up to Gaia), our scores only differ by like three percent at the max. Clearly our taste rules.

Wow, you're right. Now I'm more interested to read what you've got on their works after. I've got one review for an EP of theirs way later (Super Battle Gargoyle, 2008) but other than that Gaia was my stopping point for some reason.

_________________

gomorro wrote:

Yesterday was the birthday of school pal and I met the chick of my sigh (I've talked about here before, the she-wolf I use to be inlove with)... Maaan she was using a mini-skirt too damn insane... Dude you could saw her entire soul every time she sit...

A welcome change from the incredibly boring and meaningless praise-by-numbers reviews of Immortally_Insane and maggot215. Perhaps we are too accustomed to MA standards, rather than the "industry standard" of heaping praise on whatever shit labels give to you to promote (or "review").

Doubtful. Coming off as edgy or juvenile is hardly a welcome change from the basic. Have you been reading reviews written by other users who've proven to be unique and entertaining, such as Liquid_Braino?

(I don't intend to complain, rather to find the humor in this situation.)

Not in the queue, no. It's been a month or so since I saw a LB review though. I'm just talking about the reviews I see in the queue as we've had a backlog of them, because there has been a very significant difference between those and the great recent works by Gutterscream and RapeTheDead. The juvenile reviews are hardly of any quality, but at least they're brief and readable, even if I had to reject a third of them.

The reviews I've been seeing in the queue are historical essays about early-90s black metal written by a 13-year-old Indonesian, that 2300 word personal account of someone's experience with Master of Puppets that I've already rejected at least once, and that pretentious-as-fuck Katharsis review that's been sitting in the queue for a month because nobody can bear to read it that begins with this pretense:

"...please allow me the courtesy to explain what the word 'Genre' means:

Genre: [Noun]

'A class or category of artistic endeavor having a particular form, content, technique, or the like: the genre of epic poetry; the genre of symphonic music'."

What in the fuck does this have to do with post-sludge, and what is post-sludge anyway?

Quote:

The blasting sections seem more akin to what Immolation did for a good amount of time on Close to a World Below, as a break between grooves and slowly lurching parts that seem more like what a "post-sludge" band would attempt.

That was actually a pretty well written review, far better than the other one I read from him. I still love the album, but largely agree with his points, just I have the complete opposite opinion on whether its good or not.

_________________

Naamath wrote:

No comments, no words need it, no BM, no compromise, only grains in her face.

I'm curious as to how he relates to the nu metal passage in the middle of Nostalgia (off Obscura). If that flows somehow better than Colored Sands, or is not "rather plain music with simple goals" where the "rhythm holds together a series of suspended notes into grooves, that while not chugga chugga, were clearly designed for head nodding".

To be fair, that's just one part in the entire album, but it's not as if Obscura didn't have its share of that.

The review itself isn't great, but not bad either, but I am always happy to see positive reviews for Iron Maiden's universally shunned arena rock-influenced last-two-albums-before-Blaze era. I personally quite enjoy both albums. I disagree with the guy about Bruce being bad at gruff vocals, I think No Prayer... and Fear... have some of Bruce's best performances ever.

I wouldn't call Fear of the Dark universally shunned. There are songs from that album that pretty much everybody likes (the title track, Judas Be My Guide, and Wasted Love immediately come to mind), but as a whole most people do agree that it's one of Maiden's weaker albums. No Prayer for the Dying, however, I've rarely seen any praise. I personally really like Holy Smoke, but that's about it.

_________________

Earthcubed wrote:

I'm just perpetually annoyed by Sean William Scott and he's never been in a movie where I wasn't rooting for his head to sever by strange means.

As long as they're well-written, I personally love 100% (or close) reviews of albums that are commonly disliked, even if I also don't have much love for the album in question. It's sometimes really enjoyable to see a totally different take on the album, I remember there was a 100% St. Anger review which as far as I recall was quite good, but as soon as I saw the rating I thought the guy had balls of steel.

Will somebody please just shoot him? My bet is that he's Noctir's death metal alter ego.

Totally. I wonder what he think about Incantation's Mortal Throne of Nazarene or Immolation's Here in After, since they are from the dead's period of metal. His life must be quite shitty if he can't think anything but negative shit throwing about music.

Still, I think his review of Gorguts has some valid points, but the Disincarnate one? that's terrible beyond redemption.

I bet he is around 25 years old, got into metal around 00's, jumpedthefuckup with nu metal for around a year, then knew 'real metal', felt ashamed of his younger self; got to read/read statements from ol' drunken metalheads with pain in their hearts, believed their insane mumblings about how metal turned into shit just a few years after its development and became a 'true' metalhead which lives and stands for stuff he never lived. I've met some guys like that before, especially in black metal circles.

ConorFynes calls himself an Anathema fan, and calls Lee Douglas a guest vocalist, and complains that the camera focuses excessively on the vocalist and not sufficiently on the rhythm guitarist (they're the same fucking person, you genius). Alright, Douglas wasn't as prominently a member of the band at the time, but she was not a fucking guest vocalist.